The definitive Sunday ride/Sunday race motorcycle film. Released in 1971 by famed surf documentary pioneer Bruce Brown, it showed the broad expanse of the motorcycling experience in the America of that time, from serious racers to enthusiasts such as movie star Steve McQueen. [07 Nov 2014, p.C6]

While some of the second-generation road movies are interesting, few have retained the hypnotic force of Two Lane Blacktop, an intense curio of a troubled era.

The transition from cinematographer to director can be a bumpy ride, but few have navigated it as well as British filmmaker Nicolas Roeg. [08 Mar 2002, p.C6]

Altman's dreamy, snowy northwestern about wily operator McCabe (Warren Beatty), sexy Madame Miller (Julie Christie) and a bittersweet tale of how the West was unzipped. [04 May 2007, p.C2]

Children will not quibble over the fine points, and The Aristocats remains a first-rate entertainment for little ones. Compared to Saturday- morning television, the animation seems truly magical, although even in very young minds it probably will not linger with the same weight as "Snow White" or "Pinocchio." [13 Apr 1987, p.C3]

Nothing Altman made before or after Brewster McCloud is quite so heightened with enjoyably sophomoric and bizarre humor.

One of the classic midnight movies of the Pink Flamingos -- Rocky Horror era, star-director Jodorowsky's metaphysical western about a violent wanderer plays like an especially gun-crazy Sergio Leone saga filtered through several layers of radical European/Latin American cinema and Christian and Buddhist mysticism. Zero cool in its day, it remains a striking film oddity. [16 Feb 2007, p.C4]

One of the most honest movies ever made about male friendship. [13 Feb 1998, p.N]

A bittersweet comedy about the great sleuth's great love and the one case he couldn't handle. [07 Jan 2000, p.L]

What is more striking about the film is that its secondary characters are also real. The acting appears to be non-acting. . . . Karen Black is a letter-perfect Rayette, and Lois Smith, as Robert's sister, gives the most sensitive small performance in the film. (Jack) Nicholson makes it all go. He proves he is more than a character actor with many scenes, especially the confrontation with his father.

A glorious work. [26 Dec 2008, p.C7]

The movie holds up far better than its detractors guessed - splendidly, in fact - not only thanks to Scott's spellbinding acting, but to the epic imagery, Coppola's (and Edmund North's) highly intelligent script and Schaffner's lucid, perfectly controlled direction.

Hitch's most plausible, least suspenseful spy thriller, based on Leon Uris' reality-inspired novel of intrigue in Cuba and France. [23 Jun 2006, p.C2]

A '60s landmark. [31 Oct 2003, p.C6]

Tune in, turn on and drop out with Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda as two down-and-out motorcyclists in this classic road film about the 1960s counterculture. Joining them on their cross-country trip is a young Jack Nicholson, whose charismatic performance keeps the movie rolling through some of its more experimental moments. [22 Jun 2012, p.C6]

It's an easygoing epic -- and John Wayne, as the one-eyed, booze-swilling bounty hunter who tracks the baddies down, gives a lusty, amusingly overripe performance. [08 Oct 2000, p.49]

There is no question that this film is flawed by the inclusion of the party scene and Ratzo's dream, but I cannot recall a more marvelous pair of acting performances in any one film. Dustin Hoffman deserves the Oscar for a role that is prickly on the outside, but tender on the inside.

Celebrated cinema verite chronicle of a quartet of door-to-door bible salesman, pitching their wares with slick expertise or threadbare urgency. [03 Dec 1999, p.L]

With no live dialogue, Waters relied on his vast knowledge of music to move this feature along. Snatches of Elvis Presley, R&B, Lou Christie, doo-wop and more carry Mondo Trasho through cinematic moments of nude hitchhikers, foot fetishists and the struggle of always striving to be "truly divi-i-i-ne." [30 Sep 1988, p.66]

One of the last and best of the Hammer vampire flicks has Lee doing his umpteenth turn as Transylvania's thirstiest and most sexually active aristocrat. [05 Jul 1985, p.47C]

This is one of the great alternative masterpieces of the American cinema. In many ways, Cassavetes' most important film.

Chic, shallow stuff, but there's one hell of a car chase. [22 Jan 1999, p.F]

Whatever its flaws, Funny Girl is one star vehicle that works perfectly for its subject.

A masterpiece that can still leave you dizzy with wonder. As much as any movie ever made, this visionary science-fiction tale of space travel and first contact with extraterrestrial life is a spellbinding experience.

An improbable masterpiece -- a bizarre mixture of grandly operatic visuals, grim brutality and sordid violence that keeps wrenching you from one extreme to the other.

One of those lurid, macabre, amusingly exaggerated B-horror movies beloved by the psychotronic/Joe Bob Briggs crowds.

Ferocious action saga about an old samurai (Mifune) taking a stand against his lord's cruelty and injustice. [03 Mar 2006, p.C5]

It's based on a novel by a real chain-gang inmate, but the movie itself often seems slick and arch, like a conformist's yearning tribute to non-conformity. Yet the cast is superb: Paul Newman as the rebellious Luke, George Kennedy as his brutish sidekick, Strother Martin as a jailer ("failure to communicate") and about a dozen supporting actors who became widely familiar faces over the next decade. [16 Jan 2009, p.C6]